Ruling Allows For-Profit Colleges To Continue Bilking Students

People who are considering higher education better think twice about going to a for-profit institution. You're more likely to end up with a whole load of debt and nothing to show for it since the degrees offered aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

And a ruling allows for-profit colleges to continue bilking their students with degrees that aren't worth the paper they're written on and can continue to get federal student loans to cover the costs (even as the students can't repay since they can't land jobs due to having degrees that aren't worth the paper they're written on).

Congratulations are in order for the for-profit college industry, which won a major court ruling this week—a judge ruled that the Department of Education could not penalize these fake schools just because they routinely destroyed the financial future of their graduates. Here are the outrageous DoE rules, which were struck down as "arbitrary and capricious," via the WSJ:

The rules would have required that a school meet one of three requirements for three of four years, or lose access to federal student aid: at least 35% of recent graduates are repaying their loans; loan payments eat up no more than 12% of graduates' average annual earnings; or payments consume no more than 30% of graduates' average discretionary income.

The problem is even worse when you consider that 10% of students nationwide are enrolled in for-profits, but they take 25% of federal student loans, and account for 50% of defaults (and see here).

The Student Loan Debacle Just Got Even Messier

The fight over interest rates on Stafford loans is a sideshow. The rate was temporarily reduced to 3.4%, and Congress was looking to extend that rate and had to find alternative places to cut funding to offset the federal subsidy.

Never mind that banks themselves are making money hand over fist on student loans - both on origination fees and the interest they charge. The federal government set subsidy levels.

Now, as part of a one-year extension on those 3.4% rates, students looking to get loans on advanced degrees will find that they can no longer obtain Stafford loans and will have to see much more expensive private student loans.

Even as Congress moves to prevent undergraduate student loan rates from doubling, lawmakers have decided to eliminate two federal subsidies that will increase the cost of higher education.

One would hit the same college students who are benefiting from the interest rate freeze. Though their rates will be only 3.4 percent, they will be responsible for paying that interest as soon as they throw their graduation caps in the air — a change that is expected to cost them more than $2 billion.

Meanwhile, students hoping to earn the advanced degrees that have become mandatory for many white-collar jobs will no longer be eligible for federally subsidized loans. That means graduate students are facing an $18 billion increase in interest rate payments over the next decade, about three times the amount at stake in the debate over undergrad interest rates.

Both measures will take effect Sunday.

That means that the overall interest load for those students seeking advanced degrees will increase far more than the Stafford loan deal could potentially save.

It also highlights the failure of the entire student loan system.

The current interest rate being charged is vastly inflated regardless of whether you're talking about the Stafford loans or private loans. It's a profit center, and the banks don't want to do anything to change that. Neither does Congress, which has set in motion this mess.

The solution would be to free the student loans from the current system and let the rate float at a set number of points above the 10 year treasury note. So, if the banks want to charge 3 points above the 10 year bill, that would mean a rate of 4.66% based on the current trading level. Congress could set a cap, so as to limit any spike that would limit access to higher education, and any time the interest rate on the 10 year Treasury plus the points exceeded that level, Congress would step in with a subsidy, but the current setup is a mess.

Further exacerbating the mess is that students cannot refinance their student loans to take advantage of lower interest rates. Consolidation doesn't allow refinancing at a lower rate - only averaging the rates currently imposed across the student's loans. That too should change, allowing students to free up their debt burden by converting higher interest loans into lower cost loans that enable them to not only pay their student loans in a timely fashion, but frees up income to afford other expenses, including starting families, buying cars or homes, or starting up a business.

Junior High School Students Tossed From 9/11 Memorial For Tossing Trash

The NY Daily News is reporting that students from JHS 292 in Brooklyn were kicked out of the National 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center for throwing trash into the reflecting pools that are intended to symbolize the destruction of the Twin Towers.

A group of Brooklyn students on a school trip to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum were booted from the hallowed site after they callously hurled trash into its fountains. The vile vandals from Junior High School 292 in East New York treated the solemn memorial — its reflecting pools honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks — like a garbage dump. 'They kicked us out because of littering in the water. Kids were throwing baseballs in the pond thing,' said eighth-grader Anthony Price, 14, of East New York, who insisted he wasn't one of the troublemakers. In addition to the baseballs, witnesses reported seeing empty plastic soda bottles and other refuse in the water on Thursday. 'They were making jokes and throwing stuff in the fountain. It didn't seem like a big deal,' added another student on the trip who refused to give his name. Department of Education officials have launched an investigation into the students' shenanigans. Tourists visiting the site Saturday said they were disgusted by the students' filthy acts. 'That is an absolute disgrace,' said Sharon Hooks, 55, a school teacher from Hartford, Conn. 'I don't care if these children were too young to remember the events of that day. They need to be taught to be respectful.' Rene LaRosa, of Saddle Brook, N.J., pinned the blame squarely on the shoulders of the students.

It's all the more reason that the museum needs to be opened and people understand the importance of the site. These kids apparently have no understanding of the importance of the site and don't have any respect for what happened, the site itself, or how to act in solemn manner. They were more interested in figuring out whether trash floats or gets carried off into the pools over the waterfalls into the abyss below. And apparently another kid from the same group had several bullets confiscated during the security screening.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 162

Despite the fact that there's been no work done on the WTC 9/11 Museum for months, that doesn't mean that the fight over what the museum will contain and display hasn't continued.

I find it mind-boggling that there's a fight over whether to include photos of the 19 Islamic terrorists who carried out the attacks. We need to see the faces of those who are responsible. It's like having a museum about the Holocaust and not including any of the names and faces of the key Nazi officials behind the Wanasee Conference and the orders to carry out genocide against the Jewish people.

Displaying the photos is necessary and critical to the museum's mission to reflect what happened before, during, and after the 9/11 terror attacks.

New York City’s fire chief protested that such a display would “honor” the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. A New York Post editorial called the idea “appalling.” Groups representing rescuers, survivors and victims’ families asked how anyone could even think of showing the faces of the men who killed their relatives, colleagues and friends.

The anger took some museum officials by surprise.

“You don’t create a museum about the Holocaust and not say that it was the Nazis who did it,” said Joseph Daniels, chief executive of the memorial and museum foundation.

Such are the exquisite sensitivities that surround every detail in the creation of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is being built on land that many revere as hallowed ground. During eight years of planning, every step has been muddied with contention. There have been bitter fights over the museum’s financing, which have delayed its opening until at least next year, as well as continuing arguments over its location, seven stories below ground; which relics should be exhibited; and where unidentified human remains should rest.

Even the souvenir key chains to be sold in the gift shop have become a focus of rancor.

But nothing has been more fraught than figuring out how to tell the story.

The entire process has been an absolute mess, as my ongoing Rebuilding of Ground Zero series (and the preceding Battle for Ground Zero) has detailed for nearly a decade. Every proposed move has been scrutinized and yet key details are likely to get short shrift.

Yet, I think the most important detail that has yet to be worked out is the one that has tremendous symbolic meaning. After all, we're talking about the National September 11 Memorial Museum, and yet museum officials are contemplating imposing entry fees to defray the costs for operating the museum. That's absolute hogwash, and Congress needs to set aside the necessary funds to make sure that the museum is free to the public.

Future generations need unfettered access to the site to understand what happened, what was lost, and what the ongoing effects are on those who went to Ground Zero to help with the rescue and recovery operations.

Rutgers University Faces Bigger Problem Than Merger Talk

While New Jerseyeans are questioning the wisdom of Gov. Chris Christie's proposed merger of Rutgers University with Rowan University and reorganizing the state university and Rutgers trustees are opposed to the merger (with caveats), a far more important question needs to be asked of the university and its priorities.

Is the university truly dedicated to teaching the next generation of students or is it an athletic program run amok?

The university has imposed significant fees on all students to help bail out the athletic program, which is costing far more than the program takes in. It's costing every student $1,000 a year to bail out the athletic program.

Rutgers funneled $28.5 million from the university budget and student fees into sports, the most among 54 U.S. public universities in the biggest football conferences, based on data compiled by Bloomberg for the fiscal year ended last June. It was at least the second straight year at the top of the list for the state university of New Jersey, despite cost-cutting after lawmakers and faculty protested that academics were losing out.

“Rutgers puts too much money into athletics at the cost of basically every other department,” said Stephen Sweeney, the Democratic president of the New Jersey Senate, in an e-mail. He applauded efforts by Athletic Director Tim Pernetti to increase revenue. At the same time, he said, “the faculty, student body and the families of students who are supporting them through school simply pay too much.”

Faculty Council’s Demands
Pernetti reduced spending by $4 million, or 6.3 percent, in fiscal 2011. Bloomberg filed open-records requests and obtained financial reports on athletics from taxpayer-supported universities in the six largest football conferences.

The Rutgers belt-tightening wasn’t enough to make up for a drop in revenue from a losing 2010 football season. The school’s faculty council voted March 30 to demand $5 million of cuts in university funding of athletics by fiscal 2016 and a referendum on sports fees required of students. The group called college athletics a financial “arms race.”

Rutgers is hardly alone among schools whose athletic programs are money-grubbing losers, but the scope of the costs at Rutgers exceeds those of other major schools.

The university has spent considerably on expanding its football program, primarily under Greg Schiano, but now that he's gone on to the NFL, one has to wonder whether the football program will remain succcessful, or whether it will fall back into mediocrity and become a permanent drain on the university system. One poor season shows just how that can happen (back in 2010), a series of bad seasons could have significant and permanent damage to the academic programs as well.

This should also serve as a warning to other universities that think that they can make money on their athletic programs (particularly football and to a lesser extent basketball). There's only so much money to go around, and the costs to maintain those programs add up - and with universities limiting their budgets, it will adversely affect their academic programs.

That has to change.

The Flawed NYC Teacher Ratings Released

Local media outlets had been pressing for the release of teacher evaluations collected and evaluated according to criteria that the Department of Education had admitted were incomplete, inaccurate, and would lead to incorrect conclusions. They succeeded in getting the evaluations released over the weekend, and the most striking thing that hits at the utility of the grading system is the margin of error associated with many of the teachers.

Consider a teacher with a grade of 50. That grade may be accompanied by a margin of error of 35. That means that the teacher may have either flunked (needing serious remedial assistance) or was a very good teacher. Sadly, a margin of error wasn't uncommon. In fact, it's on the low end of the margin of error. Quite a few teachers had margins of error of 50 or higher, which means that the teacher either flunked or was excellent.

How exactly can anyone glean anything of worth from a measure like that?

It's something that the media outlets themselves aren't exactly delving into. The criteria that went into the scoring was flawed, and the teachers union themselves admit that there are good teachers and bad teachers - but this evaluation does nothing to indicate which teachers are or aren't good.

Based on the margin of error alone, it would make the data dump to be useless as an educational tool, but quite inflammatory if one wants to use talking points to undermine the UFT's ability to negotiate a new contract with the City.

This doesn't mean that teachers shouldn't be graded - they should. The measures that the Department put together don't take into account whether a teacher does a satisfactory job or not. Basing a teacher rating on the ability of a class to pass a standardized test doesn't mean the student is necessarily prepared for future employment or academic achievement - only that they're teaching to the test. When a significant number of students are learning English as a second language, those teachers are at a major disadvantage.

A better approach would involve much more screening of teachers through in-class assessments and evaluations on a regular basis. New teachers would get more support from the Department so that they can get up to speed. After all, many professions need years before the given person can claim competency in the nuances of their given profession. The same goes with teaching - learning how to teach and reach out to even the problem students to get them to learn (often when many students don't want to learn, let alone be in class).

That's something that could be accomplished by reducing the number of administrators in the bureaucracy and increasing the number of teacher-mentor positions who can assist teachers with fewer years of service.

Not only would this reduce pension costs over the long run (where administrators have higher pensions than teachers whose pensions are largely capped to their actual salary and required coverages), but it would likely result in more teachers in the classroom. Adding bureaucrats does nothing to improve the in-class experience for the students (or customer if you're going with a business-centric model).

Cornell University's Bid To Develop Tech Campus On Roosevelt Island Just Improved

Earlier this year, New York City promoted an effort to redevelop a portion of Roosevelt Island as a tech campus/incubator for tech firms. Several major universities submitted bids, including Cornell University and Stanford. The Cornell bid was a joint effort between Cornell and Israel's Technion University.

Stanford has dropped out of the running.

The university and its Board of Trustees "have determined that it would not be in the best interests of the university to continue to pursue the opportunity," according to a press release from Stanford that just landed in the Curbed inbox. Stanford had submitted a 600-page proposal for a $2.5 billion, 10-acre campus (rendered at right) housing 200 faculty and 2,000 students that would open in 2016 and take 30 years to develop. But apparently "the university could not be certain that it could proceed in a way that ensured the success of the campus" and so decided to withdraw.

This decidedly improves the chances that the Cornell bid wins. I don't give Columbia University's bid much of a chance, since the university has been busy trying to expand its campus in Washington Heights and needs to devote its resources there; a Roosevelt Island campus would be a distraction to the efforts already underway.

New York City Edges Closer To Picking Team To Build New Applied Science Campus on Roosevelt Island

There's a huge contest to build a new education campus on Roosevelt Island - that would spur serious economic development and new r&d opportunities because of the focus on technology and engineering (applied sciences campus). Big money is involved, and so are big name research universities.

It's down to really 2 serious offers. One is from Stamford, the other from Cornell. I'm liking the Cornell group's chances, and that's not only because Cornell's group includes Technion U from Israel. Technion's graduates have gone on to great success internationally - half the Israel companies on the NASDAQ are headed by Technion alumni. There's tremendous entrepreneurial spirit there; and teamed up with Silicon Alley, it could lead to expanded economic opportunties throughout NYC and the region.

Roosevelt Island was picked because it had the space necessary for a new campus (Governor's Island was another option but had less transportation infrastructure available to make this happen anytime soon).

New Jersey Has a Budget; Christie Vetoed Unconstitutional Spending Added By Legislature

There will be no budget shutdown in New Jersey as is the situation developing in Minnesota. Gov. Chris Christie signed the budget presented to him by the Democratic-controlled Legislature, but not without slashing spending by $900 million. The new $29.7 billion budget is $100 million more than the budget he originally presented to the Legislature, but the Democrats will spin mightily to complain that Christie slashed spending and made harsh cuts.

The problem for Democrats is that they propped up their spending with nothing more than wishful thinking. The state was already being forced to use a borrowing plan to tide the state over until it can present a bond measure in a couple of weeks because it lacked revenues on hand to do so. Democrats added hundreds of millions more in spending than they could ever hope to expect from their millionaires tax that they further added. Christie vetoed the millionaires tax and the spending. Besides, the millionaires tax had to be law before the budget was enacted in order to claim that the revenues were available and present - and it wasn't:

Little mattered until Thursday — Democrats could pass what bills they wished on Wednesday, but if they did not survive the Christie cut, the bills were almost certainly dead. The budget as sent to Christie was doomed. The only question was whether it would be cut in a way that would allow the state to not shut down or force legislators into a marathon session over the holiday weekend.

Christie's one gift to Democrats was that he chose the former. There will be no missed barbecues this July 4. The Democrats' budget was unconstitutional; it was not balanced as required by law. It may have included some dandy stuff, but there were insufficient funds. To borrow an oft-quoted phrase: Democrats were writing checks the state could not cash.

The first problem was that the budget only could be balanced if there were a millionaire's tax. And there wasn't. And there wasn't going to be one. But even if Christie had supported such a tax, it needed to be law before the Democrats' budget went to the governor.

It is not an easy time for legislators or the governor. They are all political creatures with agendas. Democratic legislators sold out to non-elected Democratic power brokers and agreed to transform public employees' lives, changing formulas for pensions and workers' contributions toward health care benefits. In the wake of that big sellout, there was a new kind of fire sale in which everything that could be salvaged from those ashes was put up for a vote.

I have not absorbed all the Christie cuts. Most of the increased school funding toward the so-called non-Abbott school districts has been cut. So has the Earned Income Tax Credit increase. And the millionaire's tax was axed like a tree in the Koch brothers' forest. None of this is particularly surprising. Nor will it be surprising to see Democrats try to override some of these vetoes next week.

To date, Christie has been brilliant at holding together the Republican caucus. I doubt few, if any, will defect. And the bottom line is that the budget has to be balanced by law. There is only so much revenue. The debate should be about priorities, and it has never been about that. Democrats added on without taking other things out. The only way to win with Christie is to force him to transfer one item for another. Instead, he was able to say the budget increased spending beyond certified revenues. It did.

Democrats in the Legislature have screwed the state for so long that their song and dance about how budget increases being cuts are getting stale (well, it's a common song and dance - especially in New York). A budget that spends more on education than the prior year is considered a cut because the spending is less than what the Democrats demanded even though there's no revenues to back up the plan.

New Jersey's Constitution requires a balanced budget, and that means that spending must require sufficient revenues. When those revenues aren't expected or can't be reasonably expected to materialize, something has to give. The Democrats' spending spree had to be cut.

The new budget will also provide $468 million in pension obligation payments, which is something that the state had not done in recent years and is part of the deal to overhaul the pension system in the state. There's also a slightly expanded homestead property tax rebate/credit. In all, the state is spending $30 million more than last year on education spending, including $450 million as required by the State Supreme Court following its misguided decision about those districts not getting a thorough and efficient education.

New Jersey Supreme Court Rules Christie Has To Cough Up $500 Million For Education; Money State Doesn't Have

Welcome to the wonderful world where plain meaning of statements in the state constitution can be misconstrued to the point that they no longer reflect the plain meaning or fiscal reality.

Such is the case today where the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey is not providing a "thorough and efficient" education to its students despite spending more per student that practically any other state in the country. The state has to come up with another $500 million.

In a widely anticipated decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered the state to spend an additional $500 million on public education in poor districts next year.

The complex decision does not boost funding statewide, as education advocates had requested, and may avoid creating a gaping hole in a proposed budget of $29.4 billion. The 3-2 ruling, however, revealed sharp disagreements among the five justices who heard the case and issued a total of four opinions.

Justices could have ordered up to $1.7 billion in additional statewide education spending. Today's ruling gives Gov. Chris Christie and lawmakers some room to maneuver as they work to balance the state's budget by July 1.

Christie had argued that the state's current fiscal woes made it impossible to spend the full amount required by the funding formula approved by the court in 2009.

Still, the majority opinion written by Associate Justice Jaynee LaVecchia said Christie's cuts to education spending have been "consequential and significant" and must be rolled back. She also wrote that the state, which had promised to fully fund the formula, cannot back away from it when funding poor districts.

Consider that the special master for the case found that the state was spending more than neighboring states, was spending more per student, regardless of the cuts, and was still pushing to have cuts restored is quite troubling. Judge Peter Doyne's decision conflicted with his own findings, and that's formed the factual basis for this decision.

The Court ended up issuing four separate opinions in a split 3-2 decision, and we should be thankful that they didn't demand that the state find $1.7 billion in additional spending, which is what it could have demanded. Justices took to sniping at each other, with the majority claiming that the minority was looking to nullify decisions they didn't agree with. Of course, the majority itself was engaging in a bit of nullification when it misconstrues the plain meaning of "thorough and efficient".

For those who simply aren't up to speed on the situation, the State Constitution, Art. VIII Section IV, states:

The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years.

Nowhere in Doyne's decision, and now the Supreme Court decision, is a way to actually pay for the education spending requirements. New Jersey has repeatedly failed to provide a thorough and efficient system of public education precisely because of the court's interventions with Abbott districts and the legislative and executive branch attempts to circumvent those restrictions that have redistributed billions of dollars with little effect or signs of improved educational performance in low-income districts.
The state spending more and more money hasn't translated into thorough and efficient education. Forcing the state to spend even more wont result in a thorough and efficient education system.

Education funding in New Jersey is hardly thorough or efficient - and that translates into a poor education experience for students. Throwing more money at the system wont make it any more thorough or efficient.

What the Court has done is override the will of the Legislature and Executive to determine an adequate funding level. This is what the New Jersey Supreme Court has done on a repeated basis - including its asinine Abbott rulings.

The Governor's office hasn't yet issued a statement about the decision, but you know it's going to be a doozy about how the Court has overridden the will of voters and taxpayers who will have to shoulder the burden.

No matter how many times New Jersey courts attempt to inflict its will on education funding formulas in New Jersey, the end result is not improved education for the students. Somewhere in all this, that message keeps getting lost. Money is not the problem nor the answer here. Demanding that state taxpayers kick in another $500 million isn't going to result in improved student performance - it certainly hasn't done so with the billions spent to date under the prior Court mandates.

Expect the usual suspects to demand that Christie enact or otherwise renew a millionaire's tax to fund the court's mandate, or find other taxes to hike to cover these costs.

A Constitutional Crisis Grows In New Jersey Over Education Funding?

Gov. Chris Christie has warned that he might simply ignore the New Jersey Supreme Court's dictum that the state must increase education funding if the court rules in that fashion after oral arguments were made yesterday.

Gov. Chris Christie said last night that he hasn’t ruled out defying the state Supreme Court if it orders him to spend more money on poor public school students.

During the “Ask the Governor” radio program on New Jersey 101.5, Christie was asked whether he could just ignore the court if it ruled against him — a prospect that could compel him to restore up to $1.7 billion in school aid.

“That’s an option,” Christie replied. “I’m not going to sit here and speculate. … There are a whole bunch of options in the contingency plan.”

Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts last night would not say how seriously the governor is considering not complying.

Christie went on the attack against the state Supreme Court, a day after it heard oral arguments about whether he violated the state constitution by cutting public school funding last year.

Christie also took aim at Associate Justice Barry Albin, singling him out as an example of how “judges have lost their sense of place in our democracy.”

The State Supreme Court has consistently misread the constitutional requirement for a thorough and efficient education system, and ignores the fact that despite billions of dollars spent and reallocated throughout the state under the Court's Abbott decision, the education system remains anything but thorough and efficient.

The state's budget is what it is, and the Court cannot and should not impose by judicial fiat a requirement to impose further taxes on New Jersey residents over that what the Legislature and Governor agreed upon under their constitutional mandate to form a state budget. Yet, the New Jersey Supreme Court has repeatedly inserted itself into the education funding in the state, and the state has nothing to show for it except billions spent and students who aren't receiving the kind of education they should have despite funding per student averaging more than $16,000 per year (as of 2007-2008 - and it's much higher now). For comparison, New York spends more than $17,000 per student per year and the median expenditure is $10,000 per student per year. Connecticut spends more than $13,000 annually per student,

New Jersey has routinely had among the lowest percentage of federal aid per student at 3.9%, while Connecticut follows at 4.2%.

Pennsylvania has a similar thorough and efficient education clause in its state constitution, and yet the state spends significantly less than neighboring New Jersey (and education proponents claim that if the state spent another $3,000 per student, that they'd be able to meet proficiency levels - and yet that increased level of spending is still below the New Jersey spending).

What is lost on the New Jersey court, and education proponents, is that money is not the only factor in a thorough and efficient education system, and by ignoring the fact that the state cannot spend more than its means and the current $29.2 billion budget and that political expediencies means that education funding is at the levels indicated does not make the funding somehow not thorough nor efficient.

At the same time, education proponents claim that all this would be solved if the state merely reinstated a millionaire's tax, which hit those with incomes as low as $250,000. The fact is that the state's tax burden is largely the result of education funding - property tax revenue largely goes to education funding, and the state imposed the personal income tax and a sales tax increase to reduce the property tax burden. The fact is that in the ensuing 30 years since the personal income tax was imposed, the property taxes continued to rise, the property tax relief from a sales tax hike never truly materialized, and education costs have soared - all without the kind of improvement in student performance that anyone should like.

Federal Judge Sides With the Boobies (Bracelets)

A federal judge has sided with student groups that sell bracelets indicating that they love boobies as part of fundraising for cancer research in a lawsuit against school districts that had banned the bracelets.

“I Heart Boobies” bracelets are sold across the nation and have been banned in many U.S schools, including Oceanside High School, Valley Middle School in Carlsbad and Mountain Empire High School in East County.

U.S. District Judge Mary McLaughlin sided with students Tuesday in a free-speech test case filed in Pennsylvania by the American Civil Liberties Union. She issued a temporary injunction that bars the Easton Area School District from enforcing its ban.

School officials argue the slogan suggests a sexual double meaning and leads to in-school distractions.

Some schools had banned the bracelets claiming that they were distracting and full of sexual innuendos. The judge got this one right.

New Jersey Judge Overrules Governor Christie and Legislature on Education Budget Cuts

This is far from the first time in New Jersey history that the judiciary has sought to interject itself into a budget situation when education is concerned, but Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne ruled that the state's budget plan to cut $1.6 billion runs afoul of a state constitutional requirement to provide a "thorough and efficient education for New Jersey school children":

Judge Peter Doyne didn’t buy the Christie administration’s argument that the $1.6 billion in school aid cuts it made were distributed equitably among the state’s districts. Instead, he found that the reduction in funds fell disproportionately on poorer districts.

The ruling came after two weeks of testimony in which the state argued that districts could still provide a constitutionally mandated “thorough and efficient” education with current funding. A number of local school leaders testified, however, that the aid cuts made it difficult to do so, citing losses in staff and a range of programming.

Doyne, Bergen County assignment judge, was charged by the state Supreme Court with making a finding of fact as to whether the cuts allowed for a sufficient education. "The answer to this limited inquiry can only be no,” Doyne concluded in a 96- page report.

The issue of what to do about that now goes back to the Supreme Court, which can order funding restored. The Christie administration had argued that it doesn’t have the money.

The next move is uncertain but some local school advocates were heartened.

Doyne was empowered to act as a special master by the State Supreme Court back in January. Doyne, like the Supreme Court itself, continues to misread the State Constitution, Art. VIII Section IV, which says:

The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years.

Nowhere in Doyne's decision is a way to actually pay for the education he claims, nor does he understand that the state has failed repeatedly to provide a thorough and efficient system of public education precisely because of the court's interventions with Abbott districts and the legislative and executive branch attempts to circumvent those restrictions that have redistributed billions of dollars with little effect or signs of improved educational performance in low-income districts.

By looking solely at the cuts, Doyne ignores that spending alone does not guarantee performance or that a thorough and efficient education can be obtained with a smaller budget.

It further ignores that problems within various school districts are the fault of decisions made within those same districts. For example, Fair Lawn's $83 million education budget for the upcoming year is based almost entirely on local property tax levies, and receives just a fraction of that amount from the state.

Abbott districts did not resolve the historical inequities with certain inner city and poor performing districts in the decades since it was imposed by the courts. Rebuilding schools in those districts as a means to improve education has shown itself to be a failure as well as the SCA has been a morass of inefficiency, scandal, and waste - to the point that only a fraction of the schools that required work were actually completed.

UPDATE:
Indeed, it appears that Doyne completely ignores his own finding that New Jersey spends more on education per student than pretty much every other state in the country and yet performance is not sufficient because poor performing districts are still poor performing and may be getting worse:

"Despite spending levels that meet or exceed virtually every state in the country, and that saw a significant increase in spending levels from 2000 to 2008, our 'at risk' children are now moving further from proficiency," he said.

Doyne pretty much says that no matter how much the state intends to spend, with or without cuts, it wouldn't be sufficient for constitutional adequacy (which is a misreading of the state constitution).

That paragraph, in a nutshell speaks volumes as to how and why the judiciary has screwed up education funding in the state and tied the hands of the legislature in dealing with education funding for a generation.

Gov. Cuomo Launches Assault on Dysfunctional Budget Process Including Medicaid and Education Funding Mechanisms

Gov. Andrew Cuomo seems to get it. His budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal years shows that he understands the nature of the beast. The state's financial health has been destroyed because of structural deficits brought on because the state legislature and political leaders have been unwilling to tackle the sources of the deficits - cost adjustments that require increases far above the rate of inflation or other standard metrics.

I have no doubt that opponents will claim that Cuomo is slashing critical budget items and that women and minorities will be hardest hit, but here are some facts.

Cuomo is talking about resetting the formula used to fund Medicaid and state education, which are the key drivers in pushing the state budget into deficit on an annual basis. Reforming those areas would help bring the state's finances into balance without resorting to one-shots and other financial trickery.

Cuomo will propose legislation that would change the system involving what are known as Article 7 bills, which accompany the budget when it is submitted to the Legislature.

He revealed Monday that most of the state's widely forecast $10 billion budget deficit was the result of automatic "sham" spending increases that have no bearing on the state's fiscal reality.

Unlike the budget itself, which has a legal life of just one year, Article 7 bills become "permanent law" upon adoption and remain in effect until changed or repealed.

Cuomo's budget director, Robert Megna, said the Article 7 changes would substitute the widely used Medical Consumer Price Index formula for the nearly impenetrable and complex set of some 200 measurements used for decades to project cost hikes in the $50 billion-plus Medicaid program.

The current formula, if followed, would have increased Medicaid by almost 14 percent, while the new system would limit growth to about 4 percent annually, Megna said.

The opposition will try to claim that the governor is slashing their budgets, but the reality is that he's merely reducing the rate of increase. That's a huge difference, and it's one that everyone needs to recognize. The state isn't cutting these budgets, but trying to slow the rate of increase. For those who are reliant on those programs, they're going to complain that their services are being slashed, but this proposal brings a rationality to the programs and will help slow the already sky-high cost of health care and education throughout the state.

Former Gov. Paterson tried to deal with the same issues when he came to office, and he even initially proposed a 1.1% increase to the budget budget, up until the moment he frittered away his advantage and caved in to give a 4.9% increase in the state budget, funded largely through tax and fee increases. When the revenues from those tax and fee hikes failed to materialize, the deficit was further exacerbated.

Cuomo has to do much better than that, and his head-on assault of the Medicaid funding mechanism is a good start. That's sure to get the usual suspects up in arms, including some politicians who would rather treat that separate from the budget process, but that's a wholly ignorant stance. The Medicaid financing structure is critical to the state budgeting process, and reforming the financing structure is going to help bring the state's finances into order and address longstanding structural deficits.

Gov. Christie Proposes Major Advance In Autism Education Programs

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has taken heat from the education unions over his harsh rhetoric and demands for concessions from the unions to get the state's budget under control. His budget requests to reduce state spending on education to get the budget in order have come under judicial scrutiny even though it would appear that proponents of judicial activism are misreading the state constitution's requirements to provide a thorough and efficient education system.

To that end, at an open house in Paramus Gov. Christie proposed a streamlined and more efficient manner of providing educational resources to children afflicted with autism. He would like each county around the state to establish a school for autism spectrum disorder children to better coordinate and utilize limited funds rather than spread out those funds to individual schools and students around the state.

Gov. Chris Christie said he is exploring a plan to develop a school in each county that specializes in educating children with autism.

Responding to a question during a town hall meeting Thursday in Paramus, the governor said the idea has merit because it would offer a cost-effective alternative to cash-strapped communities trying to create their own special education curriculum for these students.

The idea, if developed, would also help families who have to research on their own which school district has the best program. The governor described the schools as "centers for excellence" in each county.

"The parents in this community know which districts are the best districts and they move to those districts," Christie said. "We’re having that kind of selection happen naturally so why don’t we just do it? I’ll be working with the new Commissioner of Education on that."

The news came as a welcome surprise to Linda Meyer, executive director of Autism New Jersey, a family advocacy and research group.

"We know the governor has prioritized education reform for everyone,’’ Meyer said. "It sounds like he is aiming for equality and access for all. He wants to increase access, not just those who live in certain zip codes.’’

Opponents are apparently focusing on the possibility that the focus on autism will somehow marginalize those students with learning disabilities. I'm not sure how that would work, and if the autism proposal gets adopted and shows itself to be successful, it could lead to improved education services for other students as well.

Moreover, this clearly shows that the Governor is interested in providing a thorough and efficient education system - precisely what the state constitution mandates.

New Jersey Supreme Court Calls For Special Master To Review Gov. Christie's Education Cuts

The State Supreme Court is looking to evaluate whether Gov. Chris Christie has somehow violated the state's constitutional requirements on education by proposing $1 billion in education cuts.

For a second time, the court asked Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne to serve as its fact-finder. Doyne will be asked to decide whether Gov. Chris Christie’s nearly $1 billion in cuts to state education aid last year violate the constitution's requirement for “thorough and efficient education for New Jersey school children."

The spring deadline for Doyne to present his “findings of fact and conclusions of law” throws Christie’s ability to allocate education funding in the state’s next budget into question.

This is not the governor’s only challenge. Because the court’s most recent Abbott v. Burke decision came with an expectation that the state would provide full education funding for three years – an obligation Christie broke – the legal burden now falls to the state to prove that the present levels of funding are sufficient.

The Court has been deeply involved in setting education requirements following the Abbott decision, and has cost the state billions in redistributing education funds from wealthier districts to other districts around the state that were seen as underperforming.

The problem is that those underperforming districts are still underperforming and the infusion of billions of dollars over the years hasn't brought about much needed improvements.

The court's focus on funds is misplaced. The Abbott Districts outspent other districts around the state over the years in which the Abbott rules were in effect, which should have disproven the link between funding and educational results. Money, by itself, does not provide a "thorough and efficient education for New Jersey school children".

Moreover, that's not exactly what the state Constitution says. The State Constitution, Art. VIII Section IV says:

The Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years.

That's a significant distinction, and the misapplication and misreading of this provision has led to the judiciary's inappropriate intrusion into education funding.

The system is hardly efficient and billions of dollars have been wasted because of inefficiencies in the past decade, particularly when it comes to school construction.

The court's reading would override the legislative and executive branch ability to set the funding for the statewide education of students through the public school system, and ignores the state's precarious fiscal condition. Cutting funding is necessary to close a multibillion dollar deficit and to help get the state on firm financial footing.

Horndog High School Teachers Finally Fired

It's taken just over a year, but two teachers involved in a sex romp have been fired.

A second "Horndog High" teacher was fired Wednesday amid a new allegation that her sexual relationship with another teacher started years before that fateful night.

Cindy Mauro was found guilty of "extremely serious misconduct" for having a sexual encounter with fellow teacher Alini Brito in November 2009 at James Madison High School in Brooklyn during an evening student performance.

An arbitrator found Mauro's defense - that she was aiding her diabetic friend by getting her candy and that custodians and security agents were mistaken when they said they saw them naked in a classroom - "lacking in basic truthfulness."

Another Madison teacher, Maria Bucca, testified Mauro had told her she had "fooled around" with Brito eight years earlier. Mauro denied having told Bucca the two had ever been intimate.

Mauro claimed that she was escorting Brito, who is diabetic, up to her room to give her sugar and an insulin injection. The arbitrator didn't buy that argument, particularly when it is completely unnecessary to provide a diabetic with insulin by taking off their clothes. Indeed, the custodian noted: "(Brito) was naked on the floor... and I saw the blond between her legs, and when I opened the door, she looked up and told me to shut the door."

The two teachers were discovered by a school custodian in a classroom during a SING performance in a state of undress.

Had this occurred in Brito or Mauro's home, this would never have become an issue, but because the incident occurred on school property and during a time when students could have found the two in the midst of the act of passion, it showed a clear disregard for discretion and a complete lack of common sense.

This case highlights the ongoing problems in disciplining teachers who engage in inappropriate or illegal behavior in the schools. It took more than a year to complete the disciplinary process, and Brito, who was fired on December 27, 2010, is now suing to get her job back. That's absolutely absurd and she has no business in a classroom after this incident.

Facebook Founder Favors Newark With $100 Million Gift For Education

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has opted to donate $100 million to the Newark, New Jersey education system to improve education in the city.

It's a huge gift.

Local and state officials (to say nothing of some in the media) will be quick to say that the money will come in handy because the state lost out on Race to the Top funds because of a clerical error, even though Race to the Top wasn't about putting money in the classroom but rather to design new education programs that will be implemented at some point in the future.

Newark has long been a focus of state education funds because it was one of the Abbott Districts. That pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the school system for years on end, with little tangible results. In fact, the state has been running the city school system for more than a decade because of poor performance.

It is hoped that this money will be better spent. The announcement, which will be officially announced on Oprah Winfrey's show, will also feature Gov. Chris Christie and Mayor Cory Booker. Christie is also expected to hand control of the school district back to the city.

The Star Ledger is also reporting that the $100 million gift is a matching grant, which means that a possible $200 million might end up going to Newark schools.

I remain hopeful that the money ends up in the classrooms, rather than in the pockets of bureaucrats and a bureaucracy that has done the students of Newark no favors for years on end. I hope that the money goes to fund arts and science classes, which are both sorely in need of money.

So, why did Zuckerberg decide to donate the money now? Maybe it has something to do with burnishing his image upon the imminent release of a new movie that takes a less than flattering look at Zuckerberg and the rise of Facebook.

The Higher Education Bubble May Be Next To Burst

Rising default rates should be sending worrisome messages to those at colleges and universities around the country that they are about to enter the realm of real estate and the end of easy money.

Defaults for New York's Higher Education Service Corporation (HESC) have risen to about $2 billion from just $230 million a decade ago. Some of the problem is the result from the trying economic climate, but it also is a function of rising tuition costs that far exceed the cost of living/inflation rates seen across the country.

New Jersey has seen tuition hikes well exceed inflation for years on end. In the most recent year, tuition hikes ranged between 3.5% and 7%, with the state schools logging in with a 4% increase.

New Jersey’s colleges and universities continue to be among the costliest in the nation. Last year, the average American student paid $7,020 in tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and $26,273 at private colleges, according to a national study by the College Board. All of New Jersey’s public colleges and half of the state’s private colleges were above the national average in the 2009-10 school year.


Outpacing Inflation

The sputtering economy has not slowed tuition increases. According to the Star-Ledger survey, all 24 of New Jersey’s traditional four-year colleges and universities raised tuition and fees this year faster than the inflation rate, which is less than 2 percent.

The survey did not include the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey or Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, which have multiple tuition rates depending on the degree program. The survey also did not include the growing number of for-profit colleges offering bachelor’s degrees in New Jersey.

The for-profit schools, which include the University of Phoenix and Berkeley College, do not operate on traditional semester schedules, making it difficult for students to compare costs to traditional colleges. Some of the for-profit schools also offer varying tuition rates based on a student’s program and education level.

Berkeley College, which has four campuses in the state, estimates students will pay about $20,700 in tuition this year, a 3.8 percent increase, a college spokeswoman said. At the University of Phoenix’s Jersey City campus, students pursuing a four-year degree will pay between $12,000 and $15,000 in tuition this year, campus officials said.

All those costs get passed on to students, who cannot possibly pay tuition without financial aid packages that are largely based on student loans to cover the education expenses.

The free flow of loan monies has meant that colleges and universities have felt little pressure to maintain their costs at reasonable levels, because the costs get subsumed into the loans. In fact, those federally subsidized loans are in effect a subsidy for the colleges and universities because the money is all to easily obtained and supports bloated bureaucracies at colleges and universities.

Then, there's the toll on students who graduate with bleak job prospects and massive debt.

NPR focuses on the for-profit higher education segment, but their concerns are present in the nonprofit segment as well. Repayment for student loans is a problem not only for the student, but for the government that may be forced to bail out yet another segment of the economy for bad business decisions and thus far it appears that colleges and universities are incapable of addressing the situation in any substantive manner.

Gov. Christie Fires Education Boss Bret Schundler: UPDATE: Schundler Requested Firing To Get Unemployment Benefits?

I can't say I'm surprised by this. Bret Schundler, the state education commissioner, was fired by Gov. Christie in the wake of the failure by the state to win Race to the Top grant money from the federal government.

A deputy commissioner will be named acting commissioner while the governor searches for the next person to fill the $141,000-a-year position, the officials said.

Rich Bagger, Christie's chief of staff, asked Schundler to resign on Thursday evening because he "misled" the governor and senior staff about what happened during a presentation in Washington, D.C., the officials said.

On Wednesday, Christie publicly said Schundler had tried to give the correct information to a bungled question during the presentation, but video from the U.S. Department of Education released Thursday proved that did not happen.

The state's application included incorrect data based on wrong year information, and Schundler takes the fall.

Schundler, who had previously run for governor and failed, apparently claimed that he would resign if asked, but then resisted when the governor indicated as much.

The application clearly wasn't strong enough in other areas to overcome the botched question, and that fault rests with the Education Department and the union, which helped put together the application.

Instead, the state will have to come up with fixes for its awful education funding system and failure to educate students without the federal funds.

UPDATE:
Rather than resigning, Schundler appears to have asked to be fired so that he could collect unemployment.

Ousted state Education Commissioner Bret Schundler today said he asked Gov. Chris Christie to be fired from the work he considered his “life’s dream,” rather than resign, so he could receive unemployment benefits to pay his bills.

“I asked if they would mind writing a termination letter, instead of a resignation letter, because I do have a mortgage to pay, and I do have a daughter who’s just started college,” he said in an interview this morning. “And I, frankly, will need the unemployment insurance benefits until I find another job. ... And they said fine. They said sure.”